Anselmo grunted. “I am going for wine,” he told Robert Jordan. Robert Jordan got up and lifted the sacks away from the cave entrance and leaned them, one on each side of a tree trunk. He knew what was in them and he never liked to see them close together.
“Bring a cup for me,” the gypsy told him.
“Is there wine?” Robert Jordan asked, sitting down again by the gypsy.
“Wine? Why not? A whole skinful. Half a skinful, anyway.”
“And what to eat?”
“Everything, man,” the gypsy said. “We eat like generals.”
“And what do gypsies do in the war?” Robert Jordan asked him.
“They keep on being gypsies.”
“That’s a good job.”
“The best,” the gypsy said. “How do they call thee?”
“Roberto. And thee?”
“Rafael. And this of the tank is serious?”
“Surely. Why not?”
Anselmo came out of the mouth of the cave with a deep stone basin full of red wine and with his fingers through the handles of three cups. “Look,” he said. “They have cups and all.” Pablo came out behind them.
“There is food soon,” he said. “Do you have tobacco?”
Robert Jordan went over to the packs and opening one, felt inside an inner pocket and brought out one of the flat boxes of Russian cigarettes he had gotten at Golz’s headquarters. He ran his thumbnail around the edge of the box and, opening the lid, handed them to Pablo who took half a dozen. Pablo, holding them in one of his huge hands, picked one up and looked at it against the light. They were long narrow cigarettes with pasteboard cylinders for mouthpieces.
“Much air and little tobacco,” he said. “I know these. The other with the rare name had them.”
“Kashkin,” Robert Jordan said and offered the cigarettes to the gypsy and Anselmo, who each took one.
“Take more,” he said and they each took another. He gave them each four more, they making a double nod with the hand holding the cigarettes so that the cigarette dipped its end as a man salutes with a sword, to thank him.
“Yes,” Pablo said. “It was a rare name.”
“Here is the wine.” Anselmo dipped a cup out of the bowl and handed it to Robert Jordan, then dipped for himself and the gypsy.
“Is there no wine for me?” Pablo asked. They were all sitting together by the cave entrance.
Anselmo handed him his cup and went into the cave for another. Coming out he leaned over the bowl and dipped the cup full and they all touched cup edges.
The wine was good, tasting faintly resinous from the wineskin, but excellent, light and clean on his tongue. Robert Jordan drank it slowly, feeling it spread warmly through his tiredness.
“The food comes shortly,” Pablo said. “And this foreigner with the rare name, how did he die?”
“He was captured and he killed himself.”
“How did that happen?”
“He was wounded and he did not wish to be a prisoner.”
“What were the details?”
“I don’t know,” he lied. He knew the details very well and he knew they would not make good talking now.
“He made us promise to shoot him in case he were wounded at the business of the train and should be unable to get away,” Pablo said. “He spoke in a very rare manner.”
He must have been jumpy even then, Robert Jordan thought. Poor old Kashkin.
“He had a prejudice against killing himself,” Pablo said. “He told me that. Also he had a great fear of being tortured.”
“Did he tell you that, too?” Robert Jordan asked him.
“Yes,” the gypsy said. “He spoke like that to all of us.”
“Were you at the train, too?”
“Yes. All of us were at the train.”
“He spoke in a very rare manner,” Pablo said. “But he was very brave.”
Poor old Kashkin, Robert Jordan thought. He must have been doing more harm than good around here. I wish I would have known he was that jumpy as far back as then. They should have Pulled him out. You can’t have people around doing this sort of Work and talking like that. That is no way to talk. Even if they accomplish their mission they are doing more harm than good, talking that sort of stuff.